Breeding

1989 Horse of the Year Sunday Silence (Halo) has been named the 2025 Legend of Bourbon County. The award, given by the Legends of Bourbon County Thoroughbred Fund, will be part of the annual festival held October 11 and 12 in Paris, Kentucky. The festival will feature live entertainment, educational events and farm tours. "We are thrilled to honor Sunday Silence the 2025 Legend of Bourbon County, as well as partner with Stone Farm" said Lauren Biddle, chair of the Legends of Bourbon County Thoroughbred Fund. "His legacy, both as...

About a year ago, RRP executive director Kirsten Green mused about a future in which we might see a headline such as "Leading sire X has prolific influence on track and beyond, produces record number of 5* starters." A year later, that's almost exactly the headline I just got to write, which is thrilling as a fan of both racing and equestrian sport: the late Malibu Moon, inarguably an influential sire of Thoroughbred racehorses, is also leaving a lasting impact on equestrian sport. Malibu Moon's three starters are contesting the...

The 2025 edition of The Jockey Club's Fact Book is now available in the resources section of the organization's website, according to a press release from that entity on Friday. The online Fact Book is a statistical and informational guide to Thoroughbred breeding, racing, and auction sales in North America, which is updated quarterly. Later this year, many of the statistics will begin to be updated on a weekly basis, and new statistics will be added. The Jockey Club is continually seeking ways to provide information in novel formats concerning...

Though still weeks from being potentially enacted, the threatened 25% blanket tariff on all Canadian goods entering the U.S. is causing some Canadian-based owner-breeders to sound the alarm about the possible impacts to their businesses and to the country's broader industry. "For us, it could be the end of the industry. Period," warned Yvonne Schwabe, the owner of Persley Den Farms in Acton, Ontario, and the breeder of 2013 Queen's Plate winner Midnight Aria. "That's the scary part." As currently outlined, the tariffs are scheduled to go into effect on...

In anticipation of the 25% blanket tariff on all Canadian goods entering the U.S. expected to be enacted April 2, the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (CTHS) has issued an advisory to its members, aiming to provide some clarity to a fluctuating and often confusing situation. Already this week, the U.S. government enacted a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and metal imports. "This could very well change at any moment given whatever the will of the president is," warned Tom Rooney, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Thoroughbred...

Bidding is now open on the Fasig-Tipton Digital platform for the "Soul of an Angel Flash Sale," a one-horse online auction of Eclipse Champion Female Sprinter Soul of an Angel (Atreides--Factor One, by The Factor), which will close Tuesday, Mar. 4, at 6 p.m. ET, the auction company said via a press release on Wednesday. Soul of an Angel clinched Eclipse Champion Female Sprinter honors after she won the GI PNC Bank Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar last fall. With a strong turn of foot, she...

Let's acknowledge straightaway that this cursory look at some (and only some) of the major regional programs can represent little more than a gesture of respect. As a rule, after all, we're talking about stallions that serve an almost exclusively local market, and those that do so best will have a corresponding local reputation that scarcely needs amplifying. Moreover the same caveats apply, here, as to our recent survey of Kentucky options: namely, that the one or two we single out are purely subjective picks; and, above all, that you...

Fasig-Tipton has catalogued an additional 28 entries, which includes GISW Unbridled Mo (Uncle Mo), to its upcoming Kentucky Winter Mixed Sale, to be held on Monday, Feb. 3 in Lexington, Kentucky, according to an auction company press release on Thursday. These newest entries to the sale are catalogued as hips 376-403. Unbridled Mo (Hip 401), winner of the GI Apple Blossom Handicap and a multiple graded stakes winning millionaire on the racetrack, is a half-sister to GSW Unbridled Essence (Essence of Dubai). She is offered as part of the dispersal...

Champion turf male Up to the Mark (Not This Time), has sired his first foal, a colt out of La Croix Valmer (Malibu Moon), born Jan. 16, 2025 at Newtown Anner Stud Farm, Millbrook, New York. La Croix Valmer is a full sister to Grade I-placed stakes winner Moon de French. La Croix Valmer was a $235,000 yearling purchase by Newtown Anner Stud Farm. "This colt lives up to his father's name," said Newtown Anner Stud Farm General Manager Hanzly Albina. "He is everything we expected and wanted when breeding...

Early Voting (Gun Runner), the 2022 GI Preakness Stakes winner who has made a remarkable recovery from issues which imperiled his breeding career, has achieved a high conception rate and his first-crop progeny were so well-received at last fall's breeding stock sales that the Early Voting Consortium has donated $30,000 to the Mont Liggins Trust. After getting 120 mares in foal from his first book at Coolmore Stud in 2023, Early Voting was later found to be suffering from anejaculatory syndrome, an inability to ejaculate. The stallion was treated by...

Edited Press Release WinStar Farm will host an Open House for breeders each day from Jan. 12-15, between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The open houses will be held at the farm's stallion complex on Paynes Mill Road in Versailles. Visitors are welcome without an appointment during those times to view the WinStar roster for the 2025 season, led by Constitution and Life Is Good. Breeders will also be able to see WinStar's newest additions for the breeding season: Eclipse Award finalist for Champion Male Sprinter Cogburn (Not This Time),...

The first foal sired by Ashford Stud's Gunite (Gun Runner) was born Thursday, Jan. 9. Owned by Phoenix Farm and Racing and Todd Frederick, the colt the third produce from his dam Sweet Meadow Mist (D'Funnybone), a half-sister to the stakes-winning and Grade III-placed Bachata (Kingmambo), whose daughter Gold Medal Dancer (Medaglia d'Oro) was named a 'TDN Rising Star' before going on to win the GII Azeri Stakes while placing in the GI Apple Blossom Handicap and GI La Troienne Stakes for Josephine Abercrombie's Pin Oak Stud. Gold Medal Dancer...